RL environment as marketing tool

I make this obser­va­tion with zero snark, only appreciation: there are clearly a handful of rich, robust 3D mod­eling and gamedev RL envi­ron­ments being ped­dled in the mar­ket­place right now, being snapped up by the big AI companies, for the spe­cific reason that models with these envi­ron­ments in their post-training mix can pro­duce spectacular, share­able visual demos. “I asked Model X to opti­mize my COGS” is one thing; “I asked Model X to let me ride a giant crystal dragon through a dra­matic moun­tain landscape”, fol­lowed by a swooping, scin­til­lating video, is quite another.

Exam­ples here, here, here.

In terms of model capa­bil­i­ties, these demos seem to me more like super­im­pres­sive reca­pit­u­la­tion than truly dynamic invention. “Sufficiently advanced imi­ta­tion is indis­tin­guish­able from magic”, etc. But! The value of these capa­bil­i­ties lies elsewhere: as mar­keting juice, grist for the “wow!” mill. And in that respect, they’re totally brilliant. I just hope the price of acquiring the RL envi­ron­ments is being tal­lied in the “mar­keting” column 😉